


Say It Anyways

by SennexTheAssasinKingOfLight



Category: Cursed (TV 2020)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Author is sad and needed to vent, Author regrets nothing, Depression, Graphic Description, Grief, Guilt, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, No Beta, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sad, Sad Ending, Self-Flagellation, Self-Harm, Self-Worth Issues, Suicide, The Author Regrets Everything, defenestration mentioned, implied - Freeform, lots of guilt, self deprication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:21:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28854231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SennexTheAssasinKingOfLight/pseuds/SennexTheAssasinKingOfLight
Summary: It only takes a moment for a decision to become permanent. A moment for a thought to become a  plan and for that plan to become action.Lancelot has a lot of dark moments, and one night it's to much.PLEAS READ ALL TAGS THERE ARE TRIGGERS IN HERE
Relationships: Gawain | The Green Knight & Squirrel | Percival & The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed), Gawain | The Green Knight & The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 18





	Say It Anyways

**Author's Note:**

> So uh.... Hi. 
> 
> I was having thoughts and I decided to write them. I should have been sleeping but, I don't think I could if I hadn't gotten this out. Anyways, don't hate me to much. 
> 
> I won't say enjoy, but please feel free to tell me that this hurt you as much as it hurt me. 
> 
> Okay? Yeah. Im going to try and sleep now.

The guilt weighed heavy in his gut. It was his constant companion, one he could never be rid of. He had tried and still the weight lingered, dragging him down, preventing sleep and laughter. It was as if someone had filled him full of river stones and he couldn’t be rid of them. A millstone around his neck. 

How could he ever hope to atone for his actions? 

For every Fey he now protected he had killed 10 there was no way to offset that count. He could give his body over and over as supplication shielding others from harm. He could give himself comfort and protection. He could give himself as company, and in acts of pleasure and still it would not be enough. Gawain called it love and perhaps it was but could one such as him ever return that feeling, or hope to understand it, least of all know it? He certainly didn't hate Gawain for not understanding. And he certainly didn't hate that moment afterwards wrapped in his arms when he felt safe, maybe loved, at the very least allowed to breathe comfortably. If only for a moment.

He looked over at the man sleeping softly beside him and smiled sadly. He always slept best after days like this. They had battled back another group of paladins and Cumbers men. The last of them according to Arthur and Guinevere. They had celebrated with the others over the victory and retired early to celebrate just the two of them. Slowly he lifted a hand and ran fingers through coarse unkempt hair and smiled softly. Leaning in he pressed the ghost of a kiss to Gawain's temple and stood from the bed. He should leave a note but nothing he says will matter. It won't change anything in the end. Besides, what would he possibly say? 

He dresses in the dark silent as the assassin he is. He slips from the room, leaving his swords behind, and makes his way down the hall of the keep they occupy. Gently he pushes Percivals door open. He can smell wine on the boy and knows he wont wake, not that he would have anyways. He watches as the boy turns in his sleep. He isn't a boy now, a young man full of life and having seen too much in too short a time. Just another atrocity he is guilty of causing. He reaches out a hand and pulls the blankets up against the chill and let's his hand linger a moment on Squirrels shoulder, caresses it gently with his thumb. He fights back the urge to shed tears and tears his gaze from the serene face blanketed in shadow. He closes the door softly behind him, footsteps echoing lightly down the halls as he heads toward the stable. He has one final stop. 

He steps into Goliaths stall and the horse nudges his shoulder. He does cry now, but not for himself, not for fear of his actions, but because he is overwhelmed and cannot hold back the ache that's been building and building in his chest. The relief at knowing what he is doing and that it means he will be free. He raises his hands and strokes Goliath's muzzle up his cheek and down his neck. He buries his face into the familiar scent and speaks lowly to him. 

"Take care of them Goliath of Gawain and Percival. They'll take care of you." He sniffs and wipes at his face pulling back to look him in the eye. Goliath nuzzles his face and he stands there enjoying the quiet comfort of his stead. Finally he turns from the darkened stable and heads out into the snow. Newly acquired item in hand. The snow is falling hard and fresh and he vaguely wonders if his footsteps will be visible come morning.

He enters the woods not as a hunter but as prey. He's unafraid of what he might find here. The dark doesn't frighten him, it has long since been his ally against Fey and Man and Beast alike. Which of those it will ally against with him tonight he dare not imagine. On he walks until his legs ache from the cold and his fingers have long since gone numb. He had not dressed appropriately, there had not been a point. 

He looks around absently. He can't see far, the moonlight and the starlight cut off from him by the canopy of trees. A fitting metaphor for a demon cut off from the love of God and man alike.  
He strips out of his cloak and lays it in the ground. He uncoils the short riding whip and kneels on his cloak and removes his tunic. Grasping the whip in his hands he looks towards heaven one final time. The first strike is unfamiliar. It's been some time since he'd done this and if Gawain found out…. It didn't matter now, he wouldn't. As he continued to strike at his back the ache returned a familiar comfort to his person. On instinct he recited the Lord's prayer as he worked. And then laughed mirthlessly, blood running in rivulets down his back. He was a creature from hell, spawned to kill. Born in the fire and blood of conquest, famine, war, and death to devour the souls of the living and save the damned in doing so. Reciting a prayer he had been forced to learn on his knees with bloodied hands wouldn't save him from the fires if hell. Surely that's where he was going, there was no chance he would be accepted into the afterlife of the Fey after all he had done. He winced, the whip coming into contact with a particularly nasty split in his flesh. How many was that now? It didn't matter, he could still feel them. The wolves howled near by and for a moment he reconsidered his plan. Ultimately though, there was nothing to change.

He would not be missed. Beyond Gawain and Percival only Arthur, Guineveir, and Merlin accepted him. The rest of the Fey regarded him with unveiled mistrust and thinly hidden hate. And he wondered more often than not about the motives of the five he called friend. It was in his nature to wonder, to ask questions, to be mistrustful. He knew what trust could earn him, he had known it at the hands of Carden and the other paladins as a child. It was broken bones and bruised skin, sore muscles and degradation. He was nothing. Nothing more than a killer bathed in blood and irredeemable. 

He blinked spots from his vision. Lifted the whip again and let it fall with a splitting smack that echoed around him. The snow around him was now pink with blood. His fingers were growing numb again and his thoughts hazy. He smiled, finally they would be free of him. Free of his stoic attitude and bloody hands, the mistrust his presence brought and pain he reminded them off. This was a blessing he could give them. It was a blessing he was happy to give. They could move on, be well loved and adored by their people and he would be forgotten to the rivers of time. 

He blinked tears from his eyes only to feel them freeze against his cheeks hidden by the mark of his kin. The switch fell from numb fingers and he lay forward in his ruined cloak. His vision swam with darkness, the howls of wolves nearby. It wouldn't be long. He would die as Jezebel had. Perhaps it was fitting for one such as he. He closed his eyes and remembered Gawain's smile, that image let him drift to sleep in the cold. 

Arthur retched. 

How? How could this have happened. Lancelot was a trained warrior. One of the best among Fey and men alike. And yet, here his corpse was, torn apart by wolves. It was bloody and gruesome and he couldn't bear to look upon it any longer. He turned his back and shook his head in an attempt to clear it. What was left of the body was shirtless, the garment folded neatly to the side under a layer of snow. His cloak soaked with his own blood, and the whip beside it too. He presses his eyes closed and rubs at them with the heels of his hands. This had been intentional. What was he to tell the others? Never had he been so grateful that Percival had stayed with Gawain, or that he had told them to check the castle and town instead of the woods. 

Nothing had been out of the ordinary. Nothing accepts his swords having been left in his room. None of them had grown concerned until supper time arrived and they hadn't seen him. Now the dark closed in around him as the others gathered his remains and wrapped them in that same familiar old cloak. How was he to tell the others? Why hadn't he seen this. He was king now, Lancelot to be one of his knights. And he missed this.

The trek back to the keep is the longest one Arthur had ever made. They move in slow, sombre steps through the woods. On the edge he stops and takes a deep breath Percival and Gawain are coming to meet him. He's frozen to the spot. 

"Any luck?" Percival asks chipper and hopeful. He stares at the boy, too far still to see him clearly. To see the bundle the men behind him carry. He doesn't respond. Voice stuck in his throat. He swallows and straightens his back. 

"Arthur?" Gawain inquires, voice sharp and on edge. He's a wizened old soldier he knows what silence like this means. He's sat beside too many sickbeds, sought out to many wives, and mothers, and brothers, and husbands not too. He quicken his steps and passes Percival and still all Arthur can do is stare at him.

"Arthur! Damnit, did you didn't you find him?" He looks away from Gawain who is boring holes into his skull. All he has to do is look behind him, accept the silence for what it is but he isn't. So steeling himself Arthur makes eye contact and speaks, 

"I'm sorry." It's barely a whisper, a breath on the chilled night air. And now the famous Green Knight looks past him. He steps to the side and puts a hand on his shoulder. There's nothing more he can do. This would have been better inside where it was warm and they could be safe from the cold. Not that it would take the pain away. 

Gawain stares at the bundle. He knows it's a body. Knows its Lancelot's body and still he stares. He ignores the looks on the faces of the men carrying him. He can't stand the pity he knows he will find there. 

“NO! No. No. nononono Gawain. No it can’t he can;t. No.” Percival shouts behind him. Instinctively he puts out his arm and stops the boy. Pulls him close and forces him to stop struggling. 

“No. Please no. Why? Why HIM!?!” Percival screams into his chest and what is he to say to the child they had trained, that they had raised? He looks over Percival at the soldiers,

"Inside then."

He hears a voice say, hollow and far away. It's not until they've marched inside that he realizes it was his own. They set Lancelot down surprisingly gently. He wonders idly if it's because they think he's likely to go off on them. He doesn't blame their fear. It's Percival that ultimately returns him to reality. The boy is trying to stop his crying and falters. Sobs wrack his frame when Gawain turns to him. Instinctively he opens his arms again and Percival steps into their protective embrace. He looks over his shoulder and stares at the blood soaked cloak, the ice is melting in the warmth of the room. A puddle of pink forms around it spreading outward in a mockery of a battlefield death. 

"How?" His voice is empty to his own ears, but he needs to know. 

Arthur meets his eyes again and shakes his head. 

"Wolves. He went out there without a weapon." King Arthur sounds very small, smaller than he had when they first met, and Gawain thinks bitterly that it’s finally time the man showed some humility. 

"What are you leaving out?" He can see there is more in the way that he shifts on his feet, flicks his eyes away from them and back. Arthur looks pointedly at Percival and shakes his head. 

"Say it anyways." He says, voice breaking. He knows what’s gone unspoken. What's coming. 

"Gawai--"

"SAY IT ANYWAYS!" He roars and Percival flinches in his arms. 

"His back was bloody. Whipped bloody. He went out there to die." Arthur holds his gaze until he drops his head to Squirrels shoulder. They cling to one another desperately, attempting to stay standing amidst the crashing of their world. He closes his eyes and pulls Squirrel closer. They stand there in the flickering light of torches for hours. The only thought in his mind "why?"

It's two days before they can gather enough wood for a pyre. They give him the burial of a knight at Arthur's command and Gawain agrees. More people attended than he thought would. No one has been told the truth. Those who recovered the body are sworn to secrecy. It is not the way a knight should pass, nor is it something they can accept yet. Gawain cannot bear the way the others would speak of him, nor does he wish for Percival to hear it. It will be hard enough with them all so happy that he is no longer around. 

"Why did he do it?" Percival asks no one in particular when only the five of them remain. His eyes red and puffy from crying and lack of sleep. 

"The same reason we've all thought about it." Merlin answers looking at Gawain and to the others in turn. 

"He believed himself alone and unworthy." 

They watched in silence as darkness came and the flames burned until there was nothing but embers to remind them of the man who had saved them.


End file.
